With the entire album clocking in at just 25 minutes, ‘Sonder‘ is a fast blast of a pop-punk release that features driving guitar lines, booming drumbeats and absolute pounding bass parts. With a vocal style not too dissimilar to that of Set Your Goals, Above the Underground have a fast and frantic style that comes complete with a huge amount of energy and a good amount of style. There are times on this album where the tracks can get a little samey, the band’s music is nonetheless always well written though and individually each track has its own merit.
‘Prologue‘ is an interesting 30 second number to start the album that serves as the calm before the storm, a melodic track that kicks the album off gently before the band then explodes into ‘Return To Point Pleasant‘. Interestingly, with the closing number the prologue is later revisited with ‘Reprise‘, taking the structure of the intro yet putting a darker spin on the proceedings and turning it into a full length album track. ‘Reprise‘ takes the album full circle and stands out as one of the album’s best and most distinguishable moments with its impressive instrumental style and as ever excellent vocals. ‘Reprise‘ just feels like it really completes the release, serving as an absolutely perfect closing number that certainly makes the listener well aware that it’s the final track on the album.
Much like ‘Reprise‘, ‘I Was Never Lost‘ is another track where the band take a harder approach and another that really stands out strongly. Borrowing from the ‘Your Favorite Weapon‘ era of pop-punk, ‘I Was Never Lost‘ shakes things up a little and stops the album from stagnating too much with its hard hitting style. It’s the longest track on the album and the band really seem to take the time here to fully explore the track and develop it in all areas into something extremely special. Instrumentally the band have a lot to offer here, it’s the most complete sounding track on the album and along with ‘Reprise‘ just seems to really showcase the band at their very best.
Just as the heavier tracks break things up rather nicely, ‘Shine‘ is another track that helps provide something a little different here, an acoustic track that comes complete with ‘woah oh’ vocals that it’s very difficult not to sing along to. It’s nice to hear the band strip things back a little, take away the distortion and showcase their strong talent for songwriting and Will Kirkman’s impressive vocal style. A well carried out acoustic track can really leave a strong lasting impression and this is certainly the case with ‘Shine‘.
Although ‘Reprise‘, ‘I Was Never Lost‘ and ‘Shine‘ stand out for offering something different, Above the Underground are very good at writing straight up pop-punk/pop-rock songs and tracks such as ‘Return To Point Pleasant‘ and ‘Not Home‘ are well worth checking out as incredibly catchy slabs of rock goodness. ‘Lavender Town Syndrome‘ may come as somewhat of a disappointment for those hoping for Pokémon inspired lyrics about wanting to be the very best, it’s another pretty impressive and catchy piece of music from the band though and another track that’s certainly well worth a listen.
Whilst it can be argued that the ‘Sonder‘ album does suffer at times from patches of predictability, it really is hard to understand as to how this band still remain unsigned. Granted, it can be a bit difficult at times to get spotted in a genre where so many bands sound so similar, Above the Underground showcase some absolute moments of quality on this album though, more than enough to merit them a record deal at least and certainly enough to garner them a far greater following in the future.
Above the Underground are a UK pop-punk band well worth paying attention to. There are definitely plenty of people out there that will love this band that just don’t know it yet.
UK based film graduate with a huge passion for music, sports and video games.
